Activepieces vs Make

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors.

The short answer

Free plan: Both have one
Public API: Both have one
Best fit: Activepieces: Teams that want Zapier-style flows without sending data to a vendor's cloud · Make: Operations and marketing teams wiring SaaS apps together with branching logic they can see
Trust score: About even — Activepieces 89, Make 86
Status: We could not check Make — its site turns automated checks away; Activepieces was up on Sep 6, 2026

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

ActivepiecesMIT-licensed workflow automation with around 700 connectors, runnable on your own servers

MakeVisual automation builder with branching scenarios, AI agents and an MCP server, metered in credits.

Side by side

Fact	Activepieces	Make
Category	Workflow Automation Platforms	Workflow Automation Platforms
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starts at	$16/mo	—
Public API	Yes	Yes
Trust score	89 / 100	86 / 100
Platforms	Web, API	Web, API
Company	Activepieces Inc.	Celonis, Inc.
Launched	2022	—
Last verified	Sep 6, 2026	Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Activepieces

The strongest reason to pick it over Zapier or Make is the MIT licence: if the pricing stops working for you, you move the same flows onto your own hardware. The connector count is real and the free cloud tier is genuinely usable. The catch is credit metering — AI steps cost 2 to 20 credits each, so agent-heavy flows burn the allowance far faster than plain integrations do.

Pros

MIT-licensed with self-hosting via Docker, Helm or any cloud
Around 700 connectors covering Gmail, Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce and Shopify
Free forever cloud tier with unlimited flows and daily credit refresh
SOC 2 Type II and GDPR attestation on the hosted version, plus API access on every tier

Cons

Everything is credit-metered, and AI steps cost up to 20 credits per call
The jump from Plus at $16 to Team at $166 a month is steep for small teams
Self-hosting means you own upgrades, scaling and uptime yourself

Make

Make is the visual automation tool for people who outgrow Zapier's straight lines and want routers, iterators and error handling on a canvas without running their own n8n. The credit model is the thing to understand before committing: most steps cost one credit, AI steps cost more and purchased top-ups expire, so a chatty scenario can burn a month's allowance in days. The MCP server and agents make it a reasonable home for assistant-driven automations, but they draw from the same credit pool.

Pros

Branching, iteration and error handling on a visual canvas, with routers and error handlers free of credits
3,000+ native apps plus custom integrations for any API
AI agents with goals, tools, limits and visible reasoning, plus an MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini
Free plan with 1,000 credits a month and SOC 2 Type II, SSO and audit logs on paid tiers

Cons

Plan prices are not readable without a browser session; the pricing page shows credits, not dollars, to fetchers
Credits expire at the end of the term and purchased extras expire sooner
AI-provider steps consume more than one credit, making agent-heavy scenarios hard to budget
No self-hosted option

Which one fits

Choose Activepieces if you need

Teams that want Zapier-style flows without sending data to a vendor's cloud
Developers who need to write their own connector rather than wait for one
Embedding automation inside another product under a permissive licence

Choose Make if you need

Operations and marketing teams wiring SaaS apps together with branching logic they can see
Builders who want AI agents and automations in one place, driven from Claude or ChatGPT through MCP
Companies that need SSO, audit logs and SOC 2 on a no-code automation tool